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Friday, August 3, 2018

It’s my birthday. I am reflecting on my 67 years of life on earth. Reflection at this age is mixed with looking forward; and so my thoughts immediately went to my favourite, deceased uncle. He taught me two important lessons.

Lesson one: Doing what Jesus did will help to find you a place in heaven. My uncle preached that he should go to heaven because if per chance they made an error and he descended into hell, all he had to do was to call up to Jesus and remind him that he, my uncle, was a carpenter too, and tradesmen should look after each other; a sort of union thing.

So what about all those who did something or try to do something that Jesus did, will they be able to get the same passport into heaven? Those who give you cheap wine, as if they made it from water; those doctors who think they alone can heal the sick; those pathologists who raise the dead by taking the body from a lower to a higher tray in the morgue; those school bullies who take away your lunch of bread and salt fish to feed a multitude of school children; those who have to walk on water when the heavy rains come; those who are anointed by prostitutes on and off Popeshead street.

Lesson two: Addiction comes in all forms. When his drinking was destroying his liver and swelling his feet, I was silly to try to show off my medical student knowledge about the effects of alcohol. After my dissertation, he calmly directed my attention to a plant in the house and, taking me back to one of my duties as a child, reminded me that plants need water. My tears were almost enough to soak the plant. We should all have plants inside and outside the house.

Can it be that you learn your most memorable lessons early in life? If so, what lessons did I learn from bullies in school? They will never stop until something drastic, more drastic, happens. For example, when you are confronted one night by two of them, you surprise them, and yourself, by thumping one of them in the face, and pushing the other one into the gutter. And run away to fight another day.

But why did they do these seemingly strange things? Like; put a piece of bush on your shoulder and dared you to brush it off! It was not my bush so I didn’t want to touch it, even though it looked freshly plucked and clean. But it was my shoulder; given to me by my mother and father. Was I a breech birth with troublesome shoulder delivery? Confused, I stood still, shoulder square and broad, lest the bush fell off, in the blowing wind (with no answer).

So now, at a certain workplace, some nearga will put glass bottles on the property on the shoulder of the grassy knoll , where vehicles can park. And I am suppose to remove them? That this will happen to me one day, decades later, is what my school bush-bullies were trying to teach me?

And too, they will waltz up to you, three or four of them, as if they knew that the waltz is in three-four time. Then they commanded me to touch my button (“If you think you bad”). Now, this was more serious and confusing than the bush on the shoulder. With all the hand washing my school clothes had to endure, my granny, with her aging body but seemingly microscopic eyes, will regularly sew buttons onto my shirt. Why then should I interfere with my granny’s handy work, other than when putting on and taking off my shirt? Plus, I did not think I was a bad person, who had to do bad things like touch one’s own button on the command of someone else.

So now, again at a certain workplace, the same place, some nearga will deliberately park their vehicle behind mine, in such a way, and so close, that I cannot move. They refuse to drive around the building to find trouble-free parking waiting for them. They must the descendants of the button bullies, now telling me to get in my vehicle, my very own vehicle, and reverse (“If you think you bad”.)

Growing old has it virtues, the single most important one being, no longer in my younger, more effervescent days, I am a little calmer; I think. I take almost all matters with a pinch of salt; or I do away with the salt altogether and drink more water. My birthday coming always at Carnival, water will serve me well in the Burning Flames after passing through Hell’s Gate. I am not a carpenter.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

Recently, black musicians playing classic music have attracted the attention of more than a few people. Actually, and factually, we have been playing this genre of music since the 1820’s, with black musicians and composers to still learn about and celebrate. Ambivalence seems to ransack the thoughts of both musicians and listeners. A true counterpoint exists. And as in any counterpoint in music the independent parts are also interdependent.

The typical, negative reaction of most blacks to classical music is largely based on two factors: The mere sound of the music, and, probably more important, the historical relationship between Europe and Africa and the Caribbean.

So what happens to a black listener or musician who falls in love with classical music? How do you react to those whites and blacks, and voices in your head, telling you it’s not black people music, so leave it alone? Do you note that classical music ranges in style from baroque to "classical" to romantic to modern, with sometimes razor-thin separation, if any, between traditional classical music and jazz in the modern style of classical music? Do you counter by reminding them of all the genres of music blacks have given to the world, or do you walk away and deny the genuine emotions you feel, and ask why are others denying what must be the same emotions on hearing, at least some forms of, classical music?

It may just be that a black person, listener or musician, has to live a bipolar life. A life in which you understand and value the contributions of black people to music on one hand, or in one head, and, on the other hand, or in the other head, notwithstanding the history of Europe, or standing with a constant reminder of the history of Europe, you do the same valuation of European classical music.

But how can you live such a crowded, maddening life without seeking to find “that tune”. That tune that has never been played. That tune that some refuse to hear. That tune that says until and unless Reparation is seen as a civilizing principle and process, for whites and blacks, to the actualizing end, dissonance will ravage and consume the counterpoint. And that is not music.

About Me

The hard work and adversity of my
parents and the dedication of my teachers ignited in me a passion for arts and
science and an everlasting quest for knowledge.

I spent 13 years in Jamaica at UWI,
where I met my wife, Norma and we brought two wonderful children, Sawandi and
Sabriya, into this world. Sawandi is a doctor and musician and a Red Bull Music
Academy Winner. Sabriya has a Masters Degree in Psychology. She is the 2007
Jamaican National Visual Arts silver-medalist, a photographer and a poet.

I am the director of the Mount St.
John’s Medical Center laboratory. My wife and I manage our private lab, Medpath
Clinical Laboratory. I spent about 3 years in England pursuing additional
postgraduate training for periods from 3 months to 1 year. My understanding of
music is largely due to Melba Liston, former head of the Afro-American
department of the Jamaica School of Music.

I play the soprano, alto and tenor
saxophone. Other musical instruments I play or practice on include: single
tenor and double seconds steel pans, clarinet and bass clarinet, flute alto
flute and piccolo, violin, acoustic bass guitar, accordion, piano, harmonica,
English horn, bassoon.